savage lands
by The Scarlett Ribbon
Summary: i don't want your money, i don't want your crown. see i've come to burn your kingdom down – jeyne, theon, ramsay and a ghost in winterfell (2/3)
1. a princess cut from marble

**title: savage lands**

**chapter title: a princess cut from marble**

**summary: i don't want your money, i don't want your crown. see i've come to burn your kingdom down – jeyne, theon, ramsay and a ghost in winterfell**

**dedication: the winds of winter, whenever it may appear. let it put the dumpster fire that was GoT S5 onwards to shame. i am personally still very bitter but whatever**

* * *

Here is the thing; even a giant can fall to its knees.

A legacy can be tarnished beyond measure by dishonourable deeds, by sin, by evil. A legacy can be broken in the time it takes for a hammer to fall and rubies to float downstream, to sink to the bottom of a rushing river.

Here is the thing; Winterfell is possibly the oldest castle in Westeros and beneath it lies a tomb that can only be measured in infinities. Its dead are all named Stark.

Ruin a legacy, or smash it to smithereens – the one thing you cannot do is steal it.

* * *

_savage lands_

* * *

The hall is burnt and broken, barely habitable, and she cannot breathe for the destruction of her home.

The castle she's returned to is a far cry from the safe haven she remembered throughout her days in the brothel, the whip coming down on her bare back and leaving bloody welts behind. Even now she can still feel the lash of it biting deep into her spine, feel the blood welling where it tore her flesh clean away.

She'd prayed for Winterfell then, prayed so hard to the Old Gods and the Seven that she thought her chest would implode. Arya got her wish in the end, but all she's come home to is a burned ruin and a handful of angry ghosts.

A hand starts to sneak up her thigh, under her skirts. Her hands clench around her utensils, but Arya says nothing, does nothing because there is a collection of flowering purple bruises around her throat and her husband will only make it worse for her if she fights back. Instead, she goes deep inside and fixes her eyes on a serving girl manoeuvring between the long tables, deftly sidestepping groping hands and leering faces, the way Arya wishes she could avoid her husband's.

"Give us a kiss, sweetheart!" Sour Alyn leers, groping the girl as she passes and it makes Arya sick, bile building in the back of her throat, or maybe it's a scream. Beneath the table, Ramsay's fingers poke and pinch. She does not move.

"Such a dutiful wife," he leers at her. "Such a cold fish. I thought wolf-bitches liked to be fucked."

A trick, a trap, no right answer.

Silence is the only safe option, yet even that is wrong. Ramsay likes an excuse to punish his playthings. Nails tear into the soft skin of her thigh. The serving girl moves towards the high table, copper hair gleaming in the candlelight.

"More mead, m'lord?"

The hand stills, falls away. The serving girl is biting her lip, eyes focused on the wall beyond Ramsay's shoulder – and Arya thinks she should run, run as far as she can because she is clearly afraid, even as she intervenes – afraid and entirely too pretty.

Ramsay's favourite kind.

"Yes," he says, holding up his goblet with a slow indolent smile. "I think I will."

The mead is poured carefully and the girl bobs before retreating back among the tables. Her lord husband's pale eyes track her progress around the hall and his hand does not return. When he rises, he leaves Arya at the table trying to remember how to breathe through lungs that don't work properly anymore.

That night Sour Alyn goes missing.

* * *

"You have to stop crying," Theon tells her – because no matter how hard she tries, no matter how much he begs her to _learn his name, _he will always be that dark, smiling boy who looked at Sansa like she was someone special.

_Everyone looked at Sansa like that, _she thinks bitterly, raising a hand to the bite mark on her throat. Her fingers come away red and wet.

"If I was Sansa," she asks, in a voice which trembles like dead leaves on winter winds, "would you have helped me?"

He can't answer, gets that blankly terrified look he has sometimes when he starts to remember _before. _She thinks that life before Ramsay – that's not a place he's allowed to go, that's a place, a person which leads to broken teeth and missing fingers.

She places her bloody hand over his mutilated one, the only action she can take to still the strangled breaths coming from his mouth, the desperate gasps of a drowning man. Theon flinches hard and she tries not to let the tears welling in her eyes slip and fall, sobs wracking her chest which she tries so _hard _to suppress.

Theon doesn't like to be touched anymore. She forgets, every time.

_You are not the boy I knew, _she thinks, surprised at how much capacity she has for hurt even after all this time.

"I can't help anyone," Theon whispers and all she can think of is his hands trembling on the laces of her dress, the frantic sweep of his tongue between her legs on her wedding night, frantic for all the wrong reasons. Of course he cannot help her; he cannot even help himself now.

Winterfell is not the only ruin her bastard husband has made.

"I wish I was dead," she whispers back, hands curling into fists. "I wish I was dead, just like them."

He nods.

"I wish that too."

* * *

"Your new ladies maid," her husband informs her with a flourish and smile which makes her flesh crawl. "Serve my lady wife diligently, won't you?"

The girl with the copper hair bobs clumsily and bows her head. Arya doesn't miss the way Ramsay eyes the sliver of pale throat exposed to the winter air.

"Yes, m'lord."

The smile widens, something ugly and salacious in his red tongue and glistening teeth. Arya shivers, but doesn't move, doesn't react, doesn't say anything at all. The door closes softly behind him like a promise.

Quiet footsteps approach her and Arya looks up into green eyes she could drown in.

"What's your name?" Arya asks impulsively, yearning beyond anything for a friend, someone to be on her side, someone who can move between the walls of this castle without being watched, the way she and Theon are.

She wants an ally. She wants to tell this poor young girl to run. Ramsay will only hurt her, or worse – there is nothing to protect a serving girl from his very worst cruelties, just as there was nothing to protect poor Jeyne. Arya Stark at least is someone who cannot be disposed of quietly.

"My name's Freya," the serving girl tells her.

* * *

She has not been to the Godswood since the day of her wedding, but when she is feeling particularly brave Arya looks out across the castle to the tops of the weirwood trees and tries to remember the girl she was before. It is difficult to see that silly little thing clearly these days. Arya looks back at Jeyne Poole's petty jealousies in something close to amazement.

_You wanted to be a high lords daughter, _she imagines saying to that dark-haired little girl who watched the Stark girls with bottomless envy – particularly the youngest one, the scruffy-haired, scabby-kneed child who cared more for riding than for sewing, the girl who didn't deserve her station in life.

_You wanted this, Jeyne. All your life you wanted to be Arya Stark and now you are. _

If she thought it would do any good, she would brave the inevitable wrath of her husband and walk out into the snows to beg the Old Gods for forgiveness. But she knows now that the gods of the North are not merciful. They gave her everything she ever wanted in a way that makes her wish she never wanted it at all.

"I take it back," she whispers to the empty room, to the ghosts that lurk in every corner. The ghosts see her and they _know. _They laugh.

They hate.

They burn.

They watch as Ramsay does – as Ramsay does _unspeakable _things to her body night after night and they do not lift a finger to help her.

Why would they? To the outside world she is the last daughter of a broken House, but in her heart of hearts Arya is still nothing but a stewards daughter no matter how much Theon tries to make her convince herself otherwise.

"There must always be a Stark in Winterfell," the people used to say in hushed voices, the kind Old Nan would use to tell a particularly scary story, one of Bran's favourites and it doesn't occur to her yet to wonder why.

* * *

The snows are high and blazing and somewhere out there an army is marching doggedly toward them. Theon's mouth is bleeding.

"Grunt and Skinner are gone," he mumbles between broken teeth, eyes darting nervously around her bedchamber. "One of Ramsay's bitches, too."

Together, they are hiding under her bed in the dark spaces where she never used to feel safe. In the dark, they can almost be themselves again.

"Stannis?" she breathes.

"Ghosts," he replies in a fearful whisper. "Lady Dustin made me take her down to the crypts and there are swords missing."

She thinks of the catacomb of tombs far beneath them, the chill air so far removed from the warmth that flows through the walls. Lady Stark always said that the hot springs were the heart of the castle, but Arya wonders now if the crypts are the real centre of Winterfell, that timeless hole in the earth where dead kings of old are buried, where the line starts and stretches forward into infinity, all the empty graves waiting for lords that will never be and never die.

"Ghosts," Arya echoes and for the first time, Theon is the one to reach for her hand.

* * *

They find Skinner and Grunt two days later, strung up from the rafters it the great hall with their eyes gouged out and their shrivelled cocks stuck between their open jaws. Lord Bolton surveys the carcasses with that strange, cold gaze that Arya hates, and purses his lips.

"Cut them down," he orders, while the dogs snap and howl over old bones, skinny, dreadful things that scare her almost as much as her husband. They were reared to hunt, to shred, and even without the feel of canine teeth against her neck she is barely holding herself together, holding the cracks in cupped hands.

Without her permission, Arya's eyes slide across the room to find Theon huddling in a corner. She can never call him Reek, can never even think of him as that in her head. No matter that Ramsay ruined him long before he took her to wife for a dead girl's name, in the privacy of her own mind he will always be the smiling boy who looked at Sansa like she was someone special.

He has seen it too – the words written in blood on the wall beneath the bodies, the thing Ramsay would never want either of them to see:

_The North Remembers. _

Lord Manderly doesn't smile, the Frey's are beside themselves and Theon – Theon looks like he truly has seen a ghost. Arya follows his gaze, surprised, and sees a shadow in the corner, a feral winter-thing watching the mayhem with a smile.

It's gone before she can make out a face.

* * *

_tbc_

* * *

**notes: it's taken me years and years and years to get this the way i want. literally wrote this first draft back in like...2012?**

**notes2: apparently i have decided to tackle my years-long writers block by delving back into incomplete and abandoned fics, you guys there is so much fic on my laptop that has never seen the light of day you do not even know**

**notes3: someone teach me how to write again please and thanks**


	2. seven devils in my house

**title: savage lands**

**chapter title: seven devils in my house**

**summary: I don't want your money, I don't want your crown – see I've come to burn your kingdom down. Jeyne, Theon, Ramsay and a ghost in Winterfell. **

**dedication: my hoes. and my bf.**

* * *

_Savage Lands_

* * *

Snow batters Winterfell on all sides and in the night the howling of the wind sounds like wolves. The whole castle is on high alert, the way it always is when Ramsay is gearing up for a hunt. Her husband is restless, fuming, never able to keep his attention on anything for long – even Arya's cries of pain don't seem to satisfy him the way they usually do.

_I'm not the target he wants._

She thinks of the words written in red on the wall behind the high table, beneath the swollen, cut up corpses that hung like bats from the ceiling.

(She's heard the Frey's have been strung up too, somewhere in the Riverlands and Arya cannot help but think of vengeful ghosts, the crypts beneath the castle, the famous words _there must always be a Stark in Winterfell _and wonders why that is. She wonders if this, the bodies they uncover in the mornings, is what it means to find out.)

"We'll find the traitor," Ramsay had snarled. "I'll rip his fucking balls off and shove them up his arsehole, but not before I've flayed him first."

When she'd turned back to her Lord husband, his eyes were elsewhere. His eyes were on Freya, her small waist, and slender neck as she crossed the hall to Arya's side.

"My lady," she'd murmured, soft as a lovers kiss. "You're shivering something awful. Let me take your somewhere warm."

Perhaps she imagined it, Arya thinks, but she could have sworn Freya had turned her head back, just slightly, widening her eyes in a way that reminded her of summer silks – and a sharp blade concealed in its folds.

"I heard the guards talking."

"Hush now," Freya whispers, pouring another bucket of hot water into the tub. "You'll get us both in trouble, m'lady."

But Arya will not be deterred; there's a bubble of fear, of hope flowering in her chest and she cannot pretend it isn't happening. All those years in Kings Landing she clung to the hope of Winterfell, of the King in the North, of _home _and now –

"They say Stannis is marching," Arya murmurs, teeth chattering despite the steaming water.

It burns the hurt and filth from her skin, but no matter how hard she scrubs, she knows she'll never be clean again. Still, the way Freya scrubs at her back is tender and careful and for a moment she allows herself to think of her mother.

_My mother was lady Catelyn, _she tells herself. _She used to brush my hair every night before bed _but no that was Sansa, that wasn't her, was never her, her name isn't Arya.

"Is it true?"

Freya hesitates, her hand stilling half out of the water. "Stannis marches from the wall," she whispers after a moment, "and I heard them whisper that a Stark marches from the South."

"There are no more Starks," Arya says, before she can help herself. Bran and little Rickon are dead, just like Lord and Lady Stark and brave Robb who used to smile at her sometimes. No one knows what happened to Sansa after King Joffrey died.

_No one is coming to my rescue. _

Freya resumes her gentle scrubbing, head bowed so that copper hair catches in the candlelight. "I didn't mean to distress you m'lady. Tis only rumours. The smallfolk here do not love your husband and the Starks – the Starks were kind to those under their protection. Like as not, they miss Lord Eddard's rule."

There is a lump in her throat. "Did you know Winterfell before? You speak as if you have lived here for years, but I don't remember your face."

"Nor would I expect you to," the girl says, something hidden in her voice that Arya cannot quite read. If she didn't know better she would almost say the serving girl sounds…amused, as if she is reflecting on some private joke that will never be shared with Arya.

"I grew up here," Freya adds, after a moment, like she is telling a secret. "Same as you did, m'lady. This is a Stark place. And I daresay the ghosts here won't rest easy until a Stark is back among them."

Arya goes very, very still. There are bruises flowering up her spine in shades of black and yellow, but these are things she can hide from knowing eyes. What she cannot escape; her own brown eyes. Freya, mercifully does not remark on them.

Later, shivering in her bed as the white winds blow, Arya will realise that Freya said _they _miss Lord Eddard's_ rule _– not _we._

* * *

They find Sour Alyn three days later, his throat cut and a dagger in his heart. A new message is written in blood that night, painstakingly etched into the wall.

_Jamie Lannister sends his regards_

* * *

"That's what he said to Robb," he tells her, very quietly. Once again they are hiding beneath her bed, trying to shelter themselves from Ramsay's rage.

"Freya says there's a Stark riding north," she whispers back.

Reek can hear her teeth chattering, and he wishes that was enough to drown out the sound of her voice, the sound of rumours which promise to ignite hope in his chest for the first time since he met Ramsay.

"We mustn't talk about this my lady," he says, trying to hush her before they're overheard.

But she just looks at him with sad brown eyes, and it's like watching everyone he's ever loved dying.

It's like hearing of Robb's murder, and having Ramsay tell him all the gruesome details, having Ramsay promise to have the King's mutilated corpse sent North to keep Reek company.

He gathers his courage, enough to whisper between the gaps left by missing teeth, "They say Stannis is marching too."

That Baratheon King, all hard steel and iron will, never quite defeated by the high walls and the heavy snows, the feel of starvation creeping up through the ribcage – he will liberate them both, though Reek knows he and Arya have different ideas of freedom in mind.

"I know. But I - I hope it's Robb," Arya whispers. "I hope they lied, that he escaped and they didn't really kill him like they said. He'll come and save us, Theon."

And he can see by the smile threatening to curve her lips, just the hint of hope stirring at the backs of her eyes, that it is one less ghost to haunt her with accusing eyes. Reek is no less haunted.

"He's dead. He's not coming back."

He tries not to look at her anymore, because it is not her face he sees, but a dead girl staring back at him.

"Theon," Arya says plaintively, "there's no one else it could be."

* * *

Ramsay takes her that night and he takes her hard – slips into her bedroom as the lords downstairs are supping and drags her out from under the bed and –

Arya doesn't scream, but she cannot stop little whimpers of pain and fear escaping her, his body swallowing hers, ribcage pressed into the stone floor until she thinks she'll suffocate.

He's almost spent when the door cracks open and Arya hears a gasp, a basket fall to the floor. She cannot see much, but there is copper hair and a stammering apology and Ramsay says, "Stay."

_Oh gods, _she thinks, sobbing, _Oh gods, make it stop, make him stop –_

"M'lord," Freya manages to keep her composure, but her voice is higher than normal. "This. – tisn't proper, m'lord, please -"

"You'll stay," Ramsay commands, hips snapping faster now and he isn't focused on Arya at all, is staring across the room as he ruts into her, eyes focused on Freya, her copper hair and wide green eyes.

And Freya –

Freya stares back. Licks her lips, slow and deliberate.

"M'lord," she says and curtsies. "As you command."

Later, her lord husband tucks himself back into his breeches, runs a bloody hand over Freya's cheek and down her neck. She blushes prettily, but doesn't move away – like a coltish doe transfixed in the eyes of a hound.

"Perhaps I will see you later," he murmurs.

* * *

"You have to be careful."

"I am."

"No. Listen to me. You don't know what he's like when he wants something. He'll – he'll _hurt _you, Freya. He'll use you up and tear your insides out and laugh because he finds it funny."

A long silence. The girl watches her with still eyes and a face which reveals nothing.

"You are very brave," Freya says at last, and touches Arya's face with a gentle hand. "Be brave for a little while longer."

* * *

That night the Frey retinue are murdered in their beds.

* * *

"So they didn't kill you, after all," a girl's voice says, bringing him out of a troubled sleep, dreams of blood and weddings and his whole life crumbling beneath his hands; the death of a King.

Theon – _Reek, _he remembers, _my name is Reek, Reek, it rhymes with bleak…_

The stables are still dark, but he's almost warm, burrowed under the hay with the only horse left from…before. The mare, which rears away from everyone – even Lady Arya, who so loved to ride – does not startle at the sound of the stranger's voice.

"Who are you?" he asks, shivering in the cold, wondering if this is the night he ends up dead (_at last, _he thinks, _at last, at last)_.

"I've had many names, Theon Greyjoy. None of them matter. None of them were me."

She knows who he is – and he can tell by the voice, yes, it's a woman, a girl, and she knows, she _knows _who he is. Only the Northerners know to look past Reek's ruined face, but she has a lilt to her words that makes him think of the Narrow Sea.

"You're the ghost," he realises. "The one who's been killing everyone."

"Only traitors," she replies, stepping closer to the stall. A small hand reaches out, and the mare leans into her touch hesitantly.

"I was going to kill you," the girl continues, almost sad. "You're a traitor, too. You betrayed him first."

_But not worst, _goes unsaid in the air between them. Theon breathes slowly.

"I want you to."

He senses a smile, small and cold. "I know. You want it, the gift. I can smell it on you, can see it in your eyes. You want it, but you don't have the courage even for that, do you?"

"What are you here for," he asks, ignoring her, "if not for vengeance? 'The North Remembers', you wrote."

He catches a glimpse of her face as the moon comes out, at last – a downturned mouth, and dark hair falling into eyes he cannot fathom.

"You betrayed Robb," the girl snaps, quiet rage quivering in her voice, "but I want to know this. Did you kill them? Did you kill Bran and Rickon when you came and took this place in your father's name?"

His breath catches in his throat, and a suspicion starts to bloom in the back of his mind, in his startled heartbeat.

"The boys…they weren't Bran and Rickon," he whispers, "I don't know where they are now. Far from here, I hope."

The ghost doesn't move and the horse still nuzzles gently at her hand. He remembers a skinny girl who loved to ride. Lady Arya never does, and it's just one more tiny detail in the picture that tells a gigantic lie.

"Who are you?" he asks again, but deep in his bones he already knows.

"Death," the ghost-girl whispers, and smiles.

* * *

_tbc_

* * *

**notes: still bitter about S5 of the show. what a trainwreck. **

**notes2: almost sliced my thumb off earlier when i was making dinner whoops. be careful with knives kids. **

**notes3: i don't want to go to work tomorrow**


End file.
